CLDE 2017: Two Full-Day Pre-conference Workshop Offerings

Did you know that there are two fantastic, full-day pre-conference workshops being held at the 2017 Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement (CLDE) Meeting on Wednesday, June 7th? The first is perfect for campuses interested in advancing their strategic planning around civic and community engagement and/or applying for the next round of the Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement and the second is a set of two civic assessment workshops.

Charting a Course on the Pathway to Civic Engagement: An Inventory and Action Plan for Engaged Campuses

This full day pre-conference institute is designed for teams from colleges and universities interested in strategic planning of their civic learning and democratic engagement efforts. This institute will provide not only the results of a comprehensive inventory of current practice and infrastructure to advance community engagement, but the “gift of time” for administrators to meet and work with their directors of campus centers for engagement to begin strategic planning for continued development of community engagement. This institute is designed for TWO individuals from each institution: the director of the campus center for community engagement (or staff responsible for CLDE work) and their immediate supervising administrator. The workshop is limited to 10 teams or 20 participants.

Participants will complete an online inventory in advance of the institute and receive their profile results onsite. The inventory can be accessed online and must be completed by May 1, 2017 in order to have the results ready for the workshop. The inventory takes about 30 minutes to complete.

The morning half of the institute will provide an overview of the inventory and provide an overview of the instrument and the history of its development based on a 2013 research project conducted with the New England Resource Center for Higher Education (NERCHE). The morning portion will continue with a presentation and review of the results from the inventory completed in advance. In this way workshop participants can compare the profile of their current operations with comparable institutions that have received the Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement.

Please note: The fee for this institute includes lunch on Wednesday and is for a team of two people; it also includes one copy per team of the book Engaging Higher Education: Purpose, Platforms, and Programs for Community Engagement (Stylus, 2016). Whoever registers the team will be asked later to provide the name of the other team participant. A team of two people from the same institution must participate and include the lead campus civic engagement individual and their supervisor.

Most campuses are eager to answer the question "How are the students, faculty, and staff on campus working to address civic issues and public problems?" We will explore this question in this workshop by reviewing a range of strategies to assess community-engaged activities (i.e., curricular, co-curricular, or project-based activities that are done in partnership with the community). In addition to these many strategies, institutions also often approach assessment with a variety of lenses including assessment and evaluation of community outcomes, student outcomes, partnership assessment and faculty/staff engagement among others. In practice, campuses confront an array of challenges to align these approaches into a comprehensive data collection framework and infrastructure. This session will give participants tools, strategies, and information to design, initiate and/or enhance systematic mechanisms for monitoring and auditing community-engaged activities across your institution.

As institutions implement high impact practices across their campuses, learning outcomes, curricular and co-curricular activities, and assessment tools can often become disjointed. This workshop will guide attendees through a concentrated, cooperative process of unpacking and measuring civic outcomes such as civic identity, working with others to solve wicked problems, civic mindedness, and being an agent for social change. Ultimately, participants will articulate the alignment (and in some cases, mismatch) between outcomes, interventions, and assessment methods. Attendees should come with a specific program or course in mind and consider bringing a colleague with whom you can brainstorm transdisciplinary assessment practices. Transdisciplinary assessment means that faculty and staff from different disciplines or units on campus work jointly to develop new or innovative measurement practices from which informed decisions can be made to improve practices surrounding students’ civic learning and democratic engagement during college. Attendees will be introduced to the plethora of measurement tools that purport to assess students’ civic learning and development, such as: AAC&U VALUE Rubrics, Civic Minded Graduate Rubric 2.0, campus-wide survey instruments (ETS Civic Competency and Engagement, NSSE, CIRP Surveys, PRSI, etc.), and a host of other pre to post and retrospective pre to post scales such as social dominance orientation, belief in a just world, or the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. After this facilitated discussion, participants will have a chance to apply certain tools to student artifacts such as essays, digital stories, and eportfolios. Applying the tools to artifacts will allow for participants to evaluate and synthesize their plans for assessing student civic learning and development as it relates to participating in high impact practices during college.

Opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of NASPA. If you agree or disagree with the content of this post, we encourage you to dialogue in the comment section below. NASPA reserves the right to remove any blog that is inaccurate or offensive.

Posted by

The NASPA Foundation works to advance the student affairs profession by recognizing achievements, supporting meaningful research and honoring the legacy of NASPA and student affairs leaders, scholars, and practitioners.More Info →